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A Different Next Gen Format

So everybody seems to be taking a certain side on the next-gen hi-def format war, between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. And while I wish it would be over, and I sort of support Blu-ray on this, but there's another kind of format I think should happen. Just for the record though, I like Blu-ray because it seems to be superior to HD-DVD. It holds more space, and as far as I can tell is winning the race right now. Most of its players are cheaper than HD-DVD too. Still, I have nothing against HD-DVD.

But I wish that people considered digital distribution instead. Digital distribution is buying media(in this case movies) online. Most people already have a PC, or even multiple PCs they could use to purchase. It would save money too, because they only need to buy the movie, instead of the player AND the movie. One benefit is that the new technology will allow simultaneous global release of new movies, reducing the ability of pirates to copy a movie in one country and sell videos in areas where the studios haven't released the movie. Another is that when releasing a movie on video, they guess how many video to make and ship out and if its too much they can lose money, but with digital distribution thats different. And by getting the movies online, there would be no shipping costs for the companies, and you could not lose, break, or stolen because they could add copyright protection. I'm not advocating the use of DRM, but it can be used to prevent theft in this case.

I just thought of something too: Say you wanted to sell your online bought movie. There would be some sell option and you could sell it to your friend. After the process is done, they would download the movie and they would now be able to watch it, because they bought it from you. Like a CD key being transferred but automatic through DRM. DRM was made for a good purpose at first, why not use it for a good purpose now?

Of course there could be problems with this. For one, internet speeds. As far as I know we are not exactly at the point of being able to purchase a video, and download it within even an hour. Not usually anyway. The other problem I can think of is the fact that I, like many will oppose the use of DRM and copyright protection in this. For the uses I stated above I would be fine, but thats never the case with the music and movie industry. So that would mean people would be cracking the DRM, and upsetting the industry worker people. Which could be bad. Its already being considered though so there is hope for this kind of format.

Sorry for not being more organized in this post, I'm pretty tired so there could be errors or mistakes. I'll edit this when I wake up tomorrow. Also, I know this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon but I wanted people to know a little bit about it. Thanks for reading, I'm goin to sleep.